The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 4
Took me long enough! After a month of illness and a month of finishing my master's thesis, as well as a trip to Dauge's homeland, I am back from Riga with an update. I don't know if it's good, but I can't look at it anymore. So here goes!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
4. WORKDAYS [AKA You’ll eat what’s put in front of you, young man]
The settlement was small: a few hundred new cottages stretched out along four even, parallel streets in a valley between two ridges of bare, flat hills. The red morning sun weakly lit the wet asphalt, sloping roofs, and cheerful little trees in the yards. Beyond the hills, huge, lofty structures, recognizable from movies and photographs, peeked out from behind reddish mist; these were launch platforms for spaceships.
Alexei Bykov, having stuffed himself into a white bathrobe, stood next to a huge window that spanned half the wall, looking at the street below and waiting for the doctor to call him. The crew of the “Hius” had arrived in this settlement the previous evening. Bykov slept on the airplane, but obviously not enough, because he dozed off in the car on the way from the aerodrome. The only impressions of the city that remained in his mind were a street drenched in red evening sunlight, the bright, many-storied hotel building, and the attendant[1] saying “here’s your room, comrade, make yourself comfortable . . .” Dauge woke him at seven and said that all crew members were required to appear for a medical examination, and that sleeping too long gives you bedsores.
The medical building was adjacent to the hotel. There the interplanetors were asked to undress fully, put on robes and wait.
The street beyond the window was nearly empty. A low-slung, sleek car with a silver deer-shaped hood ornament was idling by the building across the way. Two workers in light jumpsuits passed by, holding huge binders of full of blueprints. A huge semi-caterpillar electric car crawled by, dragging a trailer. A boy of about twelve ran out into a yard, looked up at the sky, and whistled through his fingers, then jumped over the fence and ran down the street, clearly copying the running style of champion sprinters.
Bykov stepped away from the window. Yermakov and Yurkovskiy had already left the room; they were called into the doctor’s office first. The others were leisurely undressing, hanging their clothes in elegant lockers with translucent doors. Alexei found himself admiring Spitsyn. The pilot had the lean, powerful body of a professional gymnast. Muscle fibers flexed under the fine gold-tinged skin on his broad shoulders. Dauge had already thrown on his bathrobe, and was tying a knot in the sleeve of Yurkovskiy’s silk shirt, smiling mischievously and saying to himself, “the bunny comes out of the hole . . . around the tree . . .” Having finished this crucial task, he chuckled cheerily and walked over to Bykov.
“You like the town, Alexei?”
“It’s a nice town,” Bykov said calmly. “Is the launch pad far?”
“It’s over there, behind the hills. You see those cranes? Over there is the famous Seventh Polygon, the first and only special spaceport for the testing, launch and landing of photon rockets in the world. This is where they launched the first unmanned photon spacecraft, the ‘Hydra’.[2] This is where they landed “Hius-1” and “Hius-2”. And probably this is where they’ll land “Hius-3”, “Hius-4”, and “Hius-5” . . .”
“Land or launch?”
“They’ll launch from here. But they have to land first. Remember, they aren’t built on Earth.”
“Right . . .” Bykov remembered the orbital casting works on the “Weidade Yu-yi” station.
Up there, at an altitude of five thousand kilometers above the Earth, under zero-gravity conditions in an almost perfect vacuum, the gigantic bodies of ultraheavy rockets were cast. Two-hundred-and-fifty people-scientists, engineers, technicians and mechanics-operated solar furnaces, centrifuges, and the world’s most complex automatic foundries, turning many-ton ingots of titanium and tungsten into the shells of interplanetary vessels. Obviously, “Hiuses” were born there too . . .
“Krutikov and Spitsyn, please!” Yermakov’s voice said behind them.
The friends turned around. Krutikov tossed away his newspaper and followed Spitsyn into the doctor’s office, carefully closing the door behind them.
“The seventh polygon is an ideal place!” Dauge said with great enthusiasm. His face was turned toward Bykov, but his eyes were following Yurkovskiy, who had already opened his locker. “All around, just hundreds of kilometers of tundra, and not a single settlement, not a single person. And to the north, the ocean . . .”
Yurkovskiy reached for his shirt.
“. . . about 200 kilometers to the shore, as the crow flies.” Here Dauge almost burst out laughing, but caught himself, triumphantly proclaiming, “a-and the five million hectares of our polygon lie across the tundra between the city and the ocean!”
Yurkovskiy had stuck his head through his collar and now stood awkwardly with his arms hanging at his sides, like a giant scarecrow. Yermakov, already dressed, headed back to the doctor’s office, neatly fastening all the buttons on his lab coat.
“There’s a highway and railroad that go south from here,” Dauge continued loudly. “About four hundred kilometers down, near the geophysics station . . .”
“I wonder,” Yurkovskiy asked thoughtfully, “what cretin did this?”
“Mhm . . . anyway, near the station the track turns and connects with the Northern Trans-Siberian Railway by Yakutsk . . . Hey, Vlad, what’d the doctor say?”
“He said I’m perfectly healthy,” said Yurkovskiy, walking toward them. He had taken off his shirt and was flexing his muscles threateningly, glaring at Dauge. “. . . thank you very much. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure not even the lowliest veterinarian could say the same about you, my friend.”
“But Vlad!” Dauge objected. “You’re wrong, it wasn’t me.”
“Then who?”
“It was him!” Dauge patted Bykov’s hairy chest. “This guy’s a real joker, Vlad!”
Yurkovskiy glanced at Alexei and turned away. Bykov was about to open his mouth and play along, but he just cleared his throat and stayed silent. Yurkovskiy wouldn’t let him in on the game-that was clear. Dauge understood this too, and suddenly felt awkward.
At that moment the door opened, and Yermakov called:
“Comrades, your turn.”
Very pleased with this turn of events, Bykov hurried into the office.
First they were examined by a doctor, a fiery brunet with a fantastic nose. He let Dauge go without saying a word, but while looking Bykov over, he tapped a long scar on Bykov’s chest with his finger and asked:
“What’s this?”
“An accident,” said Bykov laconically.
“Old?” the doctor asked, no less laconically, raising his nose.
“Six years old.”
“Consequences?”
“None,” said the engineer, demonstratively studying the doctor’s nose bridge.
Dauge snickered quietly.
The doctor wrote something down in a thick notebook, which was marked “Medical Journal No. 4024. Bykov Alexei Petrovich,” and led the friends into a neighboring room. There they saw a large off-white box. The doctor aimed his nose at Dauge and requested that he enter this box. The door of the box closed silently, the doctor pressed a few keys on a control panel on its right side, and immediately a quiet hum sounded. On the control panel, many-colored lights flashed and blinked, and the arrows of various indicators quivered. This lasted for about a minute and a half, after which the apparatus clicked loudly and spit out a white sheet of paper, covered with even lines of letters and numbers. The lights went out and the doctor opened the door. Dauge climbed out backwards, rubbing his shoulder.
The doctor turned to Bykov and cheerily nodded his nose.
“Your turn!”
Alexei cleared his throat and climbed into the box. It was dark inside. Cool metal bands locked around his shoulders and waist, pressed him into something soft and warm, then lifted and released him. A red light flashed, then a greenish one; something poked his forearm, and then Bykov felt that he was free. The door opened.
The doctor, murmuring something absent-mindedly under his breath, was looking carefully over the papers the “box” had spit out. These were health formulas, full evaluations of the cosmonauts’ physical condition, as well as personalized programs of required gymnastic exercises and dietary regimes for the entire training period before launch. Having noted something down in his “medical journals”, the doctor handed the papers to Yermakov and announced that these examinations would be repeated every week.
Yermakov thanked him and left.
*
“What’s that box?” Alexei asked Dauge as they dressed. “An adult incubator? An electric Pandora’s Box?”
“A cyberdoctor, an electronic diagnostic machine,” said Dauge. “Not so bad really, but it gives shots too. I can’t stand shots!”
They boarded the elevator and rose to the fifth floor, the cafeteria. This was a huge, mostly empty hall flooded with the pink light of the northern sun. Almost all the tables were unoccupied. Either breakfast was already over, or it hadn’t started yet.
“There’s our crew,” said Dauge.
The crew of the “Hius” was occupying two tables pushed together by the window. Both pilots and Yermakov were already there. Bykov noted that chubby Krutikov looked unhappy indeed. The “pride of Soviet astronautics” was sitting slumped over a glass of milk, crumbling dry bread and looking at Spitsyn’s plate with inexpressible longing. Dark-haired Bogdan was tearing into a steaming chunk of juicy beef.
Strangely enough, breakfast had already been prepared according to the newly-assigned rations. Bykov, rather confused, ate an entire bowl of fragrant herbs, then cleaned a cup of oatmeal, put away two chunks of excellent ham, and set to drinking his apple juice. Dauge was served meat.
Ioganich picked up his fork and knife and asked:
“And what did the doctor tell you, Mikhail?”
Krutikov flushed and dove into his glass.
“I know what,” announced Yurkovskiy, approaching the table. “Most likely he held Mikhail long and tenderly by the stomach rolls and explained in depth why gluttony has never been a virtue for an interplanetor.”
Krutikov quietly finished his milk and began to reach for a platter of buttery cookies, but Yermakov gave a quiet “hm” and the navigator hurriedly withdrew his hand.
After breakfast, Krayukhin informed them that Usmanov, one of the constructors of the new beacon, had arrived. Usmanov was ordered to teach the crew how to assemble and operate “this incredible achievement of technical thought.”
“I’ll give you two weeks for that,” Krayukhin said. “Afterwards, everyone will begin work on their individual projects.”
The first lesson took place in the hotel gym. Workers in blue overalls silently carried in a thick hexagonal beam and a few other items, the shape and material of which the uninitiated viewer could hardly associate with any vaguely familiar concept. Even Bogdan Spitsyn and Krutikov had confusion and curiosity in their eyes; only Yermakov looked over the unknown apparatus with his usual cold and indifferent stare.
Usmanov, a tall, bony man in a worker’s jumpsuit, came in, introduced himself and immediately set to work. Gradually the frowning faces of the cosmonauts brightened. Questions poured out, and a lively conversation began. Soon Bykov joined the discussion as well, being, like any engineer, familiar in broad strokes with the principles of radiolocation and radio communication.
This was a device meant to send very powerful, targeted ultrashort pulses of a certain wavelength, which were capable of breaking through thick dust clouds and highly ionized zones in the atmosphere. The length of the pulses was no more than ten microseconds. Up to one hundred pulses could be sent in a second. Special mechanisms forced the impulse beam to move in a spiral, circling the upper segment of the celestial sphere from horizon to zenith and back in a few seconds.
The device could provide spaceships with orientation on unfamiliar planets whose surface could not be visually observed, and where the usual radiolocation methods were powerless due to electrical interference and high ionization. The beacons were supposed to be placed on top of cliffs not far from convenient landing sites and other objects that deserved to be marked with guiding lines. In the given situation, in keeping with the main goal of the expedition, they were to be set up around the first new landing platform on Venus, on the border of the Uranium Golkonda.
“And the fuel?” asked Yurkovskiy.
Usmanov pulled a packet out of his briefcase.
“Selenium-cerium radiobatteries,” he said. “Two-hundred cells per cubic centimeter. We could also equip you with neutron batteries, but I think that would be excessive. They’re too bulky. A semiconductor radiobattery is much more portable. We’ll load five-hundred square meters of this mesh onto the ‘Hius’, and you can just roll it out and secure it around the beacons . . . if the soil on the edge of the Golkonda gives about fifty or sixty roentgens per square centimeter per hour-and according to our preliminary calculations it should give much more-the battery will reach three thousand kilowatts of power. For these beacons, that’s more than enough.”
Bykov doubtfully fingered the stiff elastic film, a translucent mass full of dark flecks.
The principles of assembly and installation of the beacons turned out to be very simple.
“There’s no need to disassemble the main units of the device,” Usmanov said. “That would actually be undesirable, Anatoliy Borisovich. (Yermakov nodded.) As you can see, they’re marked with factory stamps. Our laboratory is responsible for their functionality. And the rest isn’t complicated. Come closer, comrades, help me out . . . there you are, thanks.”
All the units were threaded onto a six-sided beam, like children’s stacking rings, and were attached to each other with a few latches and spikes that slid into notches. Bykov noted to himself that there was not a single screw in the entire construction-at least on the outside.
“Now the cable from the radiobattery is plugged into this socket. Like this, the beacon can work for decades without supervision.”
“It’s a good beacon, very simple,” said Krutikov, stroking the surface of the beacon, rounded and checkered like a giant dragonfly’s eye. “How much does it weigh?”
“Just 180 kilograms.”
“Not bad,” Yurkovskiy confirmed. “That means installing them will be the hardest part.”
Three methods to install the beacons had been developed. On a hard, rocky surface, it was possible to use a huge suction cup on the bottom of the pole.
On less stable ground, one was required to dig a hole for the pole to be lowered into. The hole would then be filled with melted plastic. Finally, in case the soil turned out to be loose and crumbly, a high-frequency current could be used to meld it with a six-sided monolithic column, which reached ten meters below the surface. The pole could then be welded to that.
Outside the town that very day, the team attempted their first test-runs of the assembly and installation of the beacons. Bykov watched with admiration as a vibration drill directed by Yurkovskiy’s dexterous hands quickly carved out a deep, narrow hole in a mossy granite boulder. Usmanov announced that the hole was ideal-straight and completely vertical. The pole was lowered into it, and it was filled with nasty-smelling liquid from a pressurized cylinder. The liquid hardened instantly.
“Test it out!” Usmanov suggested.
Bykov and Spitsyn exchanged glances, then lunged at the pole. Dauge joined them, then Krutikov, but they didn’t manage to pull it out or even bend it.
“You see?” Usmanov said proudly. “Now let’s assemble it.”
The sun hung low over the tips of the cranes on the launch pad when the crew of the “Hius” returned to the hotel.
“A few more days,” Yermakov told them, “and every member of the crew should know to use a drill as artfully as our geologists and be able to assemble and disassemble a beacon blindfolded. That’s our goal.”
*
After dinner, Bykov secluded himself in his room and started work on a letter to Ashgabat. He covered seven pages with spidery handwriting, read them over, sighed hopelessly and collapsed on the couch.
The letter came out inappropriately sentimental. And he really wanted a smoke. Bykov rolled onto his stomach and stuck the end of his pencil in his mouth. If he wanted, he could just go to bed and sleep until morning. Otherwise, he could lie in the bath . . . damn, what rotten thoughts, “bed”, “sleep”, “lie down.” He jolted up and ran for the library.
Evening was beginning in the hotel at the Seventh Polygon. Doors were slamming. Well-dressed guests rushed through the long corridors. The sounds of strident music boomed from below. Crowds had formed around all four elevators, and Bykov decided to go to the reading room via staircase. A joyous river of youngsters flowed down toward him. Apparently everyone was heading for the club.
In the quiet reading room, Alexei picked up three books about Venus and one about the theory of photon drives and flipped through the latest issue of “Cosmonaut” magazine. In it he noticed an article by Mikhail Krutikov on autopilot spaceship operation, tried to read it, and realized with bewilderment that he couldn’t even begin to understand it-there was too much math.
“Functionality . . .” Bykov mumbled, struggling to make sense of the conclusions at least. “Fatty knows his stuff!”
Why not go see Dauge? he suddenly thought. And what is the crew of the “Hius” doing now, anyway? Are they all reading books about Venus? I doubt it . . .
Dauge was not reading books. He was shaving. His jaw was flexed in an entirely unnatural manner, and the buzzing of the electric razor filled the room. Catching sight of Bykov, Dauge mumbled something incomprehensible.
Alexei plopped into an armchair and started looking over Dauge’s back, the blue plastic walls, the large flat-screen tv and the high matte ceiling.
Dauge finished shaving and asked:
“What are you here for?”
“Oh, am I bothering you?”
“Not at all, it’s not that you’re bothering me . . . I’m supposed to talk with Yurkovskiy now. Strictly on business.”
He went into the bathroom. The shower bubbled, and its guest could be heard blissfully humming and splashing. Then he came back, drying himself on the way with a fluffy towel.
“No offense, Alexei, but . . .”
“It’s okay, it’s fine, I’ll go . . .” Bykov rose. “I just dropped by for no reason, I was bored.”
“I have business to take care of,” Dauge repeated. “But if you’re bored, try looking for the pilots. I believe they’re in the gym now. Bogdan is trying to melt some fat off our navigator. Take a look-it’s a real spectacle!”
“Uh-huh . . . well, whatever you say!” Bykov was about to head for the door, but he stopped. “Just tell me: why is that Yurkovskiy always looking at me funny?”
Dauge hmphed, then said reluctantly:
“Don’t pay attention to him, Alexei. First, he’s a difficult person in general. Second, he’s always like this with new recruits who haven’t had the honor of spinning in centrifugal chambers or sitting for ten days in a nitrogenous atmosphere with a gas mask, like they do in the Training Institute. And third . . . you know, there was another pilot being considered for your place, Vlad’s close friend. Then Krayukhin decided to take you. You understand . . . ? In a word, all this will pass, and you’ll come back to Earth as best friends.”
“I doubt it,” Bykov muttered, angrily threw open the door, and left.
*
The next day, the work began-hard work, the kind that leaves your shoulders aching with an exhaustion that doesn’t go away even after a hot shower and after-dinner nap. The whole crew practiced installing the radiobeacons for two weeks.
They all learned to build the beacons very quickly, because each of them had rich engineering experience under his belt. But the vibration drill turned out to be a highly capricious instrument, and the craggy boulders on the outskirts of the city were decorated with many a crooked, hideously malformed hole before Yermakov finally announced that he was more or less satisfied with the progress of the newbie drillers. The vacuum-suction cups gave the crew members no less trouble.
“I don’t get it!” Bykov said once to Dauge, angrily. “Why are we spending so much time on this drilling bullshit? You know how to drill, and so does Yurkovskiy . . . isn’t that enough?”
Dauge looked at him sternly.
“Suppose Vlad and I don’t make it to the Golkonda,” he said quietly.
*
All this time they saw Krayukhin only at breakfast. He was busy 24/7 with the material needs of the expedition and spent his days and nights in warehouses, factories, and the procurement organizations of the launch site. Clearly enough, not all was well. Rumors were spreading that he fired somebody and forbid someone else from showing their face until their imperfect work was corrected. People began to talk about a certain speech he made at a municipal party meeting, about the frightening thrashing he gave the manager of the polygon.
Bykov surreptitiously observed Yermakov. The leader of the expedition and commander of the ship was quiet and reticent, and really never did laugh. And he smiled in an odd way-with only his lips. His eyes only became even colder than usual. Very soon Bykov figured out that Yermakov’s smile signified nothing good for whomever it was directed at.
One time at lunch, Dauge got up from the table, leaving on his plate a large piece of the veal that had been served to him as a main course in accordance with his prescribed diet.
“Just one minute,” Yermakov stopped him with a gentle tone. “Finish your main course, please, Grigoriy Iogannovich.”
“I can’t, Anatoliy Borisovich,” Dauge said.
“Even so, I’m asking you to,” said Yermakov, even more gently.
Dauge silently made a cutting gesture across his throat.[3]
Then Yermakov flashed his strange smile.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, Grigoriy Iogannovich,” he said very quietly, “but I have serious cause to worry that your attitude toward our preparations will force the expedition to reduce its number of geologists to one. We can’t afford to give Venus even one very small chance against us. Even that piece of veal you haven’t finished . . .”
Dauge sat back down, ears burning red, and violently stabbed his fork into the unfortunate meat. No one said a word or even looked in his direction. Lunch ended in grave silence, and Yermakov didn’t take his eyes off Dauge until the violator of the regimen had wiped the last of the gravy from his plate with a crust of bread.
Bykov noted, not without surprise, that his comrades were not in the slightest irritated with Yermakov’s strictness after this incident. On the contrary, that very evening Yurkovskiy gave Dauge a long, insistent lecture about something under his breath, after which Dauge simply sighed and guiltily threw up his hands.
Toward the end of the second week, Usmanov said his goodbyes with the crew and flew out. The next morning, after breakfast, Krayukhin said:
“From today on, everyone will, so to speak, mind their own business. Comrade Yermakov, you will be working with Spitsyn and Krutikov, as we agreed. You can go this instant-we’ve prepared passcards for you . . . You, Yurkovskiy, and you, Dauge, I ask to wait for me here. I’ll drop off our dessert expert and come back . . . Let’s go, comrade Bykov.”
There was a powerful semi-caterpillar vehicle waiting in the driveway.
“Go ahead,” Krayukhin invited.
They sat together in the back seat. Once the city was already behind them, Krayukhin leaned toward Bykov and asked:
“You like it here?”
“It’s fine,” Bykov mumbled. “Interesting place.”
“It will be even more interesting soon. Have you talked with Dauge?”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
“Yes . . . we talked.”
“And how was it?”
Bykov shrugged his shoulders. Krayukhin shouldn’t have started the conversation that way. A superior shouldn’t stick his nose in his subordinates’ business without any particular reason. Serious people prefer to keep their concerns to themselves.[4] In any case, Krayukhin didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t received an answer.
“Now you will get familiar with your responsibilities, engineer,” he said after a brief pause.
A few minutes later their vehicle stopped in front of a long, windowless building, whose front wall was entirely taken up by wide doors. A gloomy watchman approached them and checked their passes.
“Call the mechanic!” Krayukhin ordered.
They got out of the car. Around them was a slightly hilly valley sprinkled with sparse, coarse grass. Shreds of grey cloud slid through the sky above them, drizzling them with light rain. The wet earth squished under their feet.
“Tundra,” sighed the driver.
The broad, gate-like doors moved aside. A cheery fellow in a jumpsuit walked out toward Krayukhin, extending a grimy hand.
“I brought him,” murmured Krayukhin.
The person in the jumpsuit glanced at Bykov:
“I see, I see! Well then, let’s go.”
It was dark inside the building. Krayukhin tripped on something and swore through clenched teeth. The mechanic cleared his throat guiltily.
“We didn’t have time to install the lights, comrade Krayukhin. But we’ll have them by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? And what, today he’ll have to poke around in the dark?”
Bykov’s eyes slowly adjusted to the half-darkness, and he made out a broad grey mass in front of him, shining weakly in the dim light. Soon he could see ribbed caterpillar tracks, an open hatch, and the round, blind eyes of headlights.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That is the ‘Kid’,”[5] said Krayukhin. “Our tank-transporter. It’s a bit different from other machines of the same type, but you’ll get used to it quickly. You’ll start work now . . . and you!” He turned to the mechanic. “I want light here in half an hour!”
“Yes sir!” the mechanic responded briskly and ran off.
“And fetch the specifications and handbooks!” Krayukhin yelled after him. “Well, that’s it. Stay here and work. We’ll come for you at dinnertime.” He said goodbye and went toward the exit.
When a bright lamp flickered on twenty minutes later, Bykov gasped in astonishment. Before him stood the most perfect vehicle that had ever moved on caterpillar tracks. It was huge-no smaller than the gigantic amphibious tank that Bykov had seen at the National Industrial Exhibition a few years earlier-but in spite of that, it gave an impression of extraordinary lightness, slenderness, and even, one might say, grace. The long, rounded, slightly tapering body of the machine with its slender, raised rear chamber, the lightly outlined bulges of hatches and periscopes, the high clearance . . . and not a single seam anywhere! The talented builders had poured into the “Kid” both the huge power of a heavy transporter and the elegant curves of a superfast atomic car.
“Ah, that’s awesome!” Bykov whispered, walking in circles around the transporter and frequently getting down on his knees. “And what’s this? The stabilizer system . . . how cool! And the supporting levers retract? . . . clever!”
At the rear of the vehicle, he paused and laid his hand against the smooth metal. It was warm.
“It’s charged,” the mechanic chuckled kindheartedly, observing him from the doorway of the garage. “You can get in for a test drive right now if you want.”
Bykov frowned. “It’s too soon to drive,” he said. “Did you bring me the manual?”
“I did. Here you are.”
“Thanks.”
Bykov whipped the hatch open with unexpected ease. The shutters of the door closed behind his head.
“Hey, comrade!” the mechanic yelled. “You need me?”
He tapped the hatch. There was no answer. The mechanic shrugged his shoulders and left.
According to the instructions, the “Kid” was a tank-transporter with high maneuverability, built to operate on hard, viscous and granular sediments as well as highly rugged areas, in gaseous and liquid surroundings, under pressure up to twenty atmospheres and in temperatures up to a thousand degrees; it was capable of carrying a crew of up to eight people and a payload of up to fifteen tons. It was equipped with turbines with a combined horsepower of two thousand, fed by a compact uranium-plutonium self-replicating reactor. It also had infrared lights, an ultrasonic cannon, a pair of retractable mechanical manipulator arms (almost the same kind that atomic car drivers use to recharge their cars’ reactors at electric fueling stations), internal and external dosimeters and radiometers, and dozens of other systems and devices, the use of which Bykov understood very hazily. The crew, payload, mechanisms and devices were all covered by a sturdy shell made of solid-harder than titanium-temperature- and radiation-resistant plastic.
The controls of the “Kid” hardly differed from the systems Bykov already knew. The chassis also turned out to be familiar, but to clear his conscience, Alexei decided to look over the machine screw by screw. Each day he arrived at dinner very tired, splotched with oily graphite grease, and ate greedily, tossing short phrases back and forth with his comrades, then hurriedly returned to the garage or collapsed into bed. In the morning and after dinner, a car was always waiting for him in the driveway. But his personal hygiene and training regimen for the preparation period was never broken in any way. Yermakov monitored that carefully.
On the fourth day, Bykov took the “Kid” out into the field for the first time. The enormous machine rolled out of the gates with unexpected ease, almost silently. Bykov was struck by how obediently the steering reacted to the slightest movements of his fingers on the keys of the control panel. The watchman, smiling, waved to him. Bykov nodded in response, closed the hatch above him and started building speed. The “Kid” raced across the wet tundra, smoothly swinging around turns and rocking back slightly on hills. Birds rose from the creeper bushes with frightened cries; a hare zipped by like a tiny grayish ball. The path ahead was covered with thick fog-he had to turn on the infrared sensors. On the screen, the pale outlines of huge boulders and lonely, strangely twisted trees appeared and disappeared. Bykov brought the transporter up to maximum speed, made sudden stops and sharp turns, and tried a few doughnuts, which made reddish muck fly up from under the caterpillar tracks and stick to the periscope lenses. Automatic wipers momentarily swiped it away.
Unexpectedly, when the “Kid” was running at full speed, Bykov saw a net of barbed wire ahead. He swerved right and braked, but it was too late. There was an impact and a scraping sound, something crunched underneath the caterpillars, and the transporter stopped. Bykov leapt out. Behind him, a barbed-wire fence stretched out in both directions. The tracks of the “Kid”, clearly visible in the wet soil, went right through it. Shreds of wire and splinters of wooden posts dangled over the huge, ragged hole they made.
“Just what I needed!” Bykov muttered, looking around. “Where the hell am I?”
A round construction made of light-colored concrete, poking out of the fog about twenty steps away, caught his eye.
“Hey, anyone there?” he called quietly.
No one answered. He could only hear the patter of the rain on the grass and the quiet whine of the wire mesh. Bykov hesitated for a minute, then turned decisively toward the round building. It seemed unusual to him-there were neither windows nor vents in the smooth, high walls, and all that could be seen was a small square door at ground level. A little off to the side, the end of a concrete tube poked out of the grass, capped by a round, rusty lid. Bykov went up to the door and glanced in. All he managed to notice was that it was dark and warm inside. Suddenly, behind him, something metallic snapped. Bykov spun around and saw a scene out of a nightmare: the lid of the concrete tube had been opened, and a glistening specter with a round, eyeless, silvery head was climbing out of it.
Before Alexei could recall that he had already seen such a monster somewhere, it bent and jumped at him. There were about three meters of space between them, and the specter covered that distance in a single bound. But Bykov had already recovered from his bewilderment. What’s more, this ghost didn’t know the first thing about unarmed self-defense. After a few seconds of fierce battle, Bykov had thrown it onto its back, and after giving it a few good punches to the place where most people have a face, he leapt to his feet just in time to crash into a second identical monster, which had crawled out of the same door.
Now the situation went differently. Self-defense was no use. After a devastating blow, Alexei fell sideways to the wet ground, and then he was grabbed by the legs with almost supernatural speed and dragged off somewhere. It’s very difficult to fight back when you’re being held firmly by both legs. Bykov knew that and didn’t even try, waiting for the next move. The specters halted, but didn’t let go of his legs. Bykov tried to raise himself, pushing off the ground with his fists, which had been bloodied during the first skirmish. There was a clattering sound and a third specter appeared. Then Bykov felt that his legs had been freed. At that moment he rolled over and sat up, swiveling his neck (still aching from the last blow) with difficulty.
Looking around, he discovered that he was back behind the rear of the “Kid”. The specters were standing nearby and hurriedly doing something with their heads. Finally the shining spheres fell back and Bykov, in astonishment, saw familiar faces: alarmed Dauge, gloomy Krayukhin, and Yurkovskiy, white with rage. Yurkovskiy pressed his hand to his nose, blew, and presented his bloody palm to Bykov.
“You idiot!” he said, voice ringing. “You moron! Is that a human head on your shoulders or a cabbage?”
“Now now, Vladimir Sergeevich,” said Krayukhin. “Clearly, the surprise just set him off.”
“You guys?” was all Alexei could say.
“No, not us! It’s our grandmothers! Knights of the Rosicrucian Order! Members of the women’s committee!”
“Quiet, Yurkovskiy! . . . Comrade Bykov, please remove your vehicle from this area immediately . . . Dauge, close the hatch and door and tell them we’re leaving.”
“Yes sir!” Dauge put on his helmet again and disappeared behind the “Kid”.
Bykov climbed into the transporter. Krayukhin and Yurkovskiy (still cursing) followed him.
“Back out of the fence and stop there!” Krayukhin ordered.
The “Kid” started backing up.
“Enough. Stop! Now we’ll wait for Dauge.”
Bykov looked at Yurkovskiy. He was gingerly rubbing his swollen nose.
“Does it hurt?” Krayukhin asked sympathetically.
Yurkovskiy just snarled angrily. Boots clomped across the vehicle’s casing, and Dauge jumped down through the hatch.
“Done, Nikolai Zakharovich,” he said.
“Let’s go.”
Bykov put his hands on the keyboard. Then, after a moment’s thought, he pressed some buttons, turned on the engine, and stepped away from the controls. The “Kid” took off slowly.
“Where are you going?” Dauge asked, startled. “Who’s driving?”
“Autopilot,” Bykov answered guiltily. “I don’t remember the way back. But don’t worry! The mechanism handles everything, and the “Kid” navigates by gyrocompass.”
For a while they rode in silence. The transporter repeated all the movements that Bykov had made half an hour earlier with complete accuracy, but backwards.
“Do you have your dosimeter?” Krayukhin asked Dauge.
“I do, Nikolai Zakharovich. But we won’t need it. I forgot to say that when Bykov was going towards the chamber, they had already closed it. So all ended well.”
Krayukhin sighed with relief.
“You nearly found yourself in an unpleasant situation, comrade Bykov,” he said, wiping the sweat from his bald head. “You know where you were when we found you?”
“Not at all . . .” Bykov felt rather pathetic.
“Behind that barbed-wire fence is a powerful underground reactor, generating tritium. That will be the fuel for our “Hius”. The concrete tower which you so imprudently glanced into is none other than a repository chamber for the radioactive waste produced by refining uranium. And just today a set of uranium rods was sent to be melted down. If you had gone in there . . .”
“Even a cow would know that!”[6] Yurkovskiy cut in. “If something is fenced off with barbed wire, that means you can’t go in! But no, he takes his caterpillar tracks right through the wire! He can’t abide a barrier, and valiantly throws himself upon it like a lion!”
That statement was very unfair, but Bykov just sighed regretfully.
“Yurkovskiy noticed you approaching the chamber and ran to drag you out, so to speak, but he was a bit too late. I confess, we thought you were already done for.”
“We were running like crazy,” said Dauge. “I thought my heart would stop . . .”
Bykov turned to Yurkovskiy and mumbled lamely:
“I . . . I’m really sorry, seriously . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” He waved his hand in desperation. “Who knows how it happened! You really startled me, you know . . .”
Yurkovskiy’s lips twisted into a disdainful smile.
Dauge started laughing.
“And what a reception he got! A brilliant reception! Lord, that was one hell of a battle!”
“Yes, you fight well,” Krayukhin chuckled. “But be more careful in the future. In this field, you can’t touch anything bare-handed, much less when it isn’t absolutely necessary. And you’ve reminded me: this evening Dauge will help you pick a spacesuit and teach you how to use it.”
“Lord, what a fight!” Dauge repeated, wiping tears from his eyes.
Bykov quickly sat back in his chair and turned off the autopilot. Ahead of them, the flat roof of the garage peeked out from behind the light mist.
“And one more thing,” Krayukhin said. “We’ll have to test you and the ‘Kid’ for real. Are you ready?”
“You can’t test anything for real here,” Bykov muttered. “It’s all tundra, flat as a pancake . . .”
“Not a problem-I’ll find you an excellent testing ground, my friend!” Krayukhin’s gold teeth glinted in the semidarkness.
[1] If you go to a Soviet-style hotel-and there aren’t many of those left, but I was lucky enough to stay in one in Novgorod-you will find that each floor has an attendant, usually a middle-aged woman, who is there to monitor the guests. We actually had to turn our keys in to her every time we left, and get them back on return. This means that no one gets in without authorization, and also, no one gets up to funny business like smoking in the hall. Not a bad system if you ask me.
[2] This is localization. Technically it’s “Zmei Gorynych”, a many-headed dragon from Russian folklore.
[3] I left this as is because I figure it makes enough sense, even if the meaning of the gesture is a little different in the US and Russia. In the US we use it to mean something’s over or dead, and in Russia it’s more like, “enough!” It’s almost the same. Right?
[4] Arkadiy and Boris Strugratskiy, who hurt you? Can I hear the story behind this completely random admonishment?
[5] Originally “Mal’chick” or “Little Boy”. But “Little Boy” is a nuke, so I had to come up with another English name for it.
[6] The original expression here literally means “even a hedgehog can tell,” and it comes from a children’s poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, written in the 1920s. I tried to find a suitable English expression, something literary or idiomatic, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of the possibilities, so I went with the “Bykov is dumber than an animal” theme and made the rest of the statement sound more literary. Close enough.